jinny

Social media play a paradoxical role as memory media: they simultaneously enhance and hinder memory construction and actively shape what will be remembered (and forgotten), how memories are defined, when memory work and remembering take place, and who is remembering. Social media offer individuals a means to store, share, and revisit personal... See more

Metrics provide a means to keep people perpetually and increasingly engaged in their past, making them think about which memories to share and keeping them active memory making practices.

Remembering or revisiting one’s past, in the cases outlined in this article, becomes equivalent to keeping up with the past as it rapidly accumulates within social media’s archival structures. Guiding, validating, and reinforcing memory making, metrics play a powerful role in social media.